Move will be the saviour of RTS games (on console)

PlayStation Move is being hailed as the second coming for PS3. It’s being derided as a throwaway addition to the already-huge pile of gaming peripherals the world has forgotten about. It’s being dismissed as a Wii rip-off. Wherever you stand in this debate is irrelevant for the point I want to make, so check your opinions – however right or incorrect they might be – at the door. I am here to present you with unassailable fact in your face: PS Move could make real time strategy games relevant on console in the way they have never been before.

I didn’t expect to see the recent demonstrations of RUSE using Move (which you can read more about on our big sister site NowGamer), but when they showed it, I wasn’t surprised. Well, that’s a bit of a lie, as I didn’t know Ubisoft were making RUSE Move-compatible. So I was a bit surprised. But I wasn’t surprised that an RTS title was incorporating this motion-controller pointing device into its control scheme.

The PS3 is the ideal place for a console RTS renaissance – Move offers the exacting fidelity necessary for motion control, while at the same time offering players the ability to actually control the armies they command. Look back to the vast majority of console RTS games – even the likes of Halo Wars, made specifically for console, didn’t work very well.

What Move brings is, for all intents and purposes, a control scheme on a par with a mouse. Yes, you can buy mice that function with the PS3, but how many developers do you see taking advantage of that? Wrap it up in a nice new technology so the publishers can bang “Compatible With PlayStation Move” on the front of the box and you have a bona-fide reason to make your games work with the waggle wand.

This may be hopeful bleating, but I do genuinely believe this could be the start of something beautiful. Supreme Commander 3? Command & Conquer: The Unnamed Expansion? A re-release of UFO: Enemy Unknown? Alright, so I’m straying away from real-time in that last one, but you get the point. Hopefully developers will too.